Former Pastor Gets Life in Prison

In August of 2010, ex-pastor Kevin Pushia pled guilty to orchestrating the February 4, 2009 murder of Lemuel Wallace, who was picked up from his group home and shot dead in a park bathroom by an unknown accomplice.

According to Reuters,  Pushia was sentenced on October 17^th to life in prison for ordering the murder of a blind, developmentally disabled man in Baltimore. And all just so he could collect the $1.4 million in life insurance.

Along with the life sentence that was ordered by Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams, Pushia was also given 45 years for charges relating to the insurance fraud.

Pushia, posing as Wallace’s sibling, also worked as a caseworker for a nonprofit organization that serves the developmentally disabled. He listed himself on several of Wallace’s life insurance policies.

Two brothers, James Omar Clea III and Kareem Jamal Clea, were charged with the actual execution of the murder, but were acquitted last month after their trial, where Pushia provided erratic and often contradictory testimony against them.

Also during that trial, the Clea brothers’ defense attorneys said Pushia only agreed to testify because he was told he would get a lighter sentence.

The Assistant State’s Attorney Robin Wherley, who prosecuted the case, stated that there was no such agreement.

While he was on the stand, Pushia offered a detailed description of the Clea brothers’ car, even though he then told the courtroom that he couldn’t even remember the names of his own foster children.

“I had nothing to do with his death. I had something to do with his murder,” Pushia said to police about Wallace, according to transcripts read in court.

Police initially arrested Pushia after an insurance company alerted them of his name on Wallace’s life insurance policies. After searching his Baltimore home, police found a day planner notebook that had “LW project complete” written on February 4, 2009.

Pushia originally told police that it referred to the cleaning of his living room, but he eventually changed his story and confessed that “LW” stood for Lemuel Wallace.

Pushia also told the police that he paid the Clea brothers over $50,000 for the murder with funds from his church, which he founded in 2005, two years before it burned down.